Visions of a Man
by Alex the Anachronistic
Summary: Sequel to my tale of The Opera Ghost and The Potions Master. Snape finds himself again in his own time, in despair for his loss of Erik. Then Erik suddenly comes back to him. Phantom of the Opera and Harry Potter crossover. I couldn't finish this.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I am making no money off of this, and this site isn't either. This is purely fan-fiction written by a weird person who has absolutely nothing better to do than write this stuff. I don't own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Snape, etc. J.K.R. does. I don't own Erik the Opera Ghost either—Gaston Leroux created him (or simply wrote about him, I don't know…)

**Visions of a Man **

**Sequel to _The Opera Ghost and the Potions Master _**

_I could not keep away from this story. I am writing more. More, I say!_

**Chapter 1**

Severus Snape admired the jeweled robes of Minerva McGonagall as the woman plaintively sat, talking to him. Oh yes, he decided, he was glad to be home.

Today was Christmas, she had said. Was it really? Had be been gone for that long?

Then he looked at the shirt laying across the bedspread . . . one normally foreign to his wardrobe. Erik's shirt. It was Erik's shirt. Therefore, the whole thing . . . the whole dream had been real.

But Snape was pondering this for the fifth time in the past hour. The reason, he supposed, that his mind continually was going around in circles was because of how sudden the change back to his own time had been.

For, you see, Snape had been mentally and physically absent from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for months. A potion had brought him to the cellars of the Paris Opera House constructed by Charles Garnier, and there he had met Erik.

Erik was known by many as The Phantom of the Opera, for he lived in the deepest basement of it, in a little house on a lake. When Snape had first appeared to him, the lad was in a terrible condition: anorexic, infatuated with some girl named Christine (the wife of another man!), with utter lack self-confidence . . . and, most importantly, the most hideous face. This last prevented him from living life as a normal person, and he felt obligated to hide himself away from the real world.

Snape had befriended him, and changed all of the above problems, one way or another.

Severus' mind wandered as McGonagall rolled on about what had happened in Hogwarts while he was in a severe coma for the past few days. No one but him knew of his adventure, how for a period of months he had traveled back in time, to 1896. Not as though anyone would believe him if he dared!

Yes, he had befriended the Opera Ghost, and the Opera Ghost, in turn, had befriended him. But there had been a terrible fight, Erik and Snape against Raoul and Christine. Four magical people, Snape the best trained of them all. You would have thought he would have won . . . but, of course, he _had _to be drunk at the time!

This was Snape's most perturbing knife, poking and prodding his already bleeding heart. He had lost a friendship—nay, the closest friendship that he ever experienced--and he come back to his lifetime after being Avada-kedavra-ed.

Perhaps, he thought, it was all for the best. Snape had not realized how much people (at least McGonagall) liked him here. It sometimes takes an illness for one to realize that other people do, in fact, care.

Yet Severus could not help lamenting the loss of Erik. Horrible Erik! Made beautiful by Snape's own wit and charms, transformed from one of the basest forms of man to one of the highest. Though Severus would not admit it to anyone but the other man himself . . . he had grown rather fond of the hated Opera Ghost, though towards the end their friendship had become a bit shaky because of Christine . . .

But, Snape knew, Erik probably did not have a chance against Christine and Raoul combined. He might have won if Raoul had battled alone, but Christine was too good: she knew the Avada Kedavra. How, if Severus had himself died in one time and returned to another, could Erik survive? The Phantom was not a very experienced wizard, despite the fact that he and Severus were of the same exact age!

Minerva was saying something pertinent to him.

"Severus, would you like me to fetch you some pudding? Stollen? Anything at all?"

Severus opened his eyes. "You are going down to the feast, then?"

"Yes. The headmistress _must _make an appearance and speech, of course."

Snape nodded. "Just some coffee. I desperately need coffee."

"Black?"

"Perfectly."

Minerva whisked herself away, probably quite hungry from sitting with Severus since the early morn.

Left alone, Severus closed his eyes once more and wished, futilely, that he would awake in his bed at Erik's house, and that the Opera Ghost would be shaking his shoulder fiercely.

His mind dwelled on this so greatly, however, that he thought it his imagination when his shoulder _did_ feel the pressure of a heavy hand!

"Do not torment me," Severus muttered, a verbal instruction to his brain.

"Is this torment?" A familiar voice queried, hurt.

Snape's eyes flew open to see . . . the ceiling. He blinked. A firm hand did then turn his head just slightly, and Snape's heart flew to his mouth.

"Erik! What the devil!"

For the Opera Ghost stood before him, a dim smile upon his face and his clothes in a reproachable condition.

"Great Scott!" This was almost as joyous for Snape as when, eons ago, Lily had nestled against him, with nothing but a tablecloth . . .

Erik sat on the bed next to him with some difficulty, for it was rather high. The bed squeaked, but did not collapse.

"Happy to see me, eh?" Erik took his friend's hand and held it warmly. If Snape was not mistaken, he observed the slightest wetness at the Phantom's eyes.

Snape put on a look of sarcastic "No, I didn't," but it did not succeed longer than a moment.

"I know it has only been a few hours since you left me," Erik continued, "Or so it would seem to you."

Severus nodded. "But it was longer for you, I presume?"

"Much." Erik slipped off the bed and took a seat in the chair Minerva had vacated.

"Do explain. What happened between then and now?"

Erik shook his head in assent. "Of course. I thought you would ask . . ."

_To Be Continued!!_

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	2. Chapter 2

_Warning. This is the first exclusively slash chapter I've ever written. Have fun._

**Chapter 2 **

"Well now. Come off it, man." Severus glared at Erik in frustration. "Tell me about it."

Erik smiled bracingly. "Where should I start?"

"When I . . . erm . . . died, actually."

"Easily done." Erik took a moment to clear his throat. "Christine fired a curse at you . . . I don't know its name, I just know a green light came blazing out of her wand and hit you squarely in the breast."

Severus flinched at the loose use of a word now seen as taboo when used on males. He would need to update Erik on that.

"That would be the _Avada kedavra_, Erik. The killing curse."

"Oh! That is understandable, for when it struck you, you disappeared."

Severus made a fierce attempt at a scowl. "That is supposed to make sense to you?"

"Certainly!" The look in Erik's eyes intimated the obvious. "You had been killed in my time, so you were sent . . . oh."

He realized Snape did not know _quite _as much as he ought to have. But Snape caught on quickly.

"Pardon?" The eyes of the potions master glinted. "You said something to the accord, just now, of the fact that you _might possibly _have known how to send me back to my own time. Did you have this knowledge all along, or is it a recent discovery?" Clearly, though, he suspected the former.

The accusation broke down Erik. Ironically, his voice raised, and he swiftly stood. "Yes, I admit, I knew how to send you home since the moment you entered my cellars! But do you blame me, really, for not sending you back?"

The men gazed into each others' eyes, one pair watering with shame and anguish, one penetrating with an intenseness usually reserved for Harry Potter.

Then Snape laughed. "Erik, do not be a fool. It was all for the best, in the end. And you well know it."

It occurred, to him, however, that something about Erik had changed.

"Whatever did happen to your makeover?" he asked, his brow furrowing.

Erik sighed, rubbed the place where his magical nose had once been, and he seated himself once more. "Wait until I tell you about the rest of the battle and what followed it."

"Then I shall do that. But I do demand an explanation at some point."

"Understandable." Erik then proceeded to drag his chair over a bit until he could rest his head on the bed next to Severus. "I missed you a great deal, Severus."

Something else about Erik had changed. Did he look . . . older, perhaps? Yes, his locks had tinges of gray, and his skin had wrinkles. Strange, for the figure that always had seemed so youthful, lighthearted or no.

"And I did also." Though Snape had the inkling that Erik probably had lacked his presence a lot longer than he had! Silly time traveling boy.

"Well," Erik began suddenly, "You disappeared. Christine and Raoul began to feel frightened; they were certain you had escaped the killing curse and were apparating from one corner to another. They just saw shadows, however. I knew where you really were. In any case, while they were distracted, I ran like a madman into the house, into a place they should never find me. They searched the house, of course, but they always were scared you were going to come back and decimate them, so they left when they assumed I had been long gone." He sighed, long and deep.

"I fell into the deepest depression afterwards. I tried to follow your wisdom, and I ate reasonably, but not often. Most days I could barely rouse myself from my bed. Erm, actually," he corrected himself, "I slept in what had been your bed. More comfortable."

Severus did not know what to make of this, but kept his ears and eyes open.

"Then the Persian came to visit me. He found me vastly improved, appearancewise of course, and he forced me to come to live with him. I accepted it for a day, but then told him that I intended very fully to die. So he let me back down to the cellars.

"One day, though, amid my misery for y—erm, Christine's evils and consequent departure," Erik went on, his cheeks discovering a tinge of redness, "I found a corpse that had floated down into my lake. Usually, upon similar occasions, I would dredge the body out and bury it somewhere near my house. But I had myself inspired. I had many years left in me left, and you'd never want me simply lying around, doing nothing with my potential, waiting to die. I cleaned myself up emotionally, then arranged a way for me to escape my current life without fearing police or the Persian's overcuriosity. I marred the face a bit until it was indistinguishable, then I rolled him up onto the beach, as though he had washed there. Then I simply disappeared, taking nothing with me. Not even my Don Juan. I had to leave it all."

Severus' eyes grew wide as golf balls. "You abandoned Don Juan?"

"Why not? I never intended to publish it. After all," he pointed to his brain. "It's all here. Memorized. A true composer never really needs to write his music on paper except to share it. So I abandoned Don Juan and all the rest of my music, for Anthony Wedder to find and publish under his own name in these times. So I did not obstruct history in that way."

Severus did not bother to correct the slightly misremembered name of Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Instead, he placed one long-fingered hand on Erik's shoulder. "That was a great sacrifice. I'm sorry you had to do that."

Erik looked up, ignoring the tears streaming down his face. "But you do not mind; you see it _had _to be done."

"Well," Snape remarked hesitantly, "Did the Persian know about your opera? Would he be looking for it to confirm that the body was actually yours?"

"He did."

"Then I condone your actions, and likely would have done the same thing."

"Oh! I am glad of that!" Saying so, Erik threw his arms around the torso of the very startled potions professor.

"What did you do, afterwards?" Snape asked, slowly wrapping his arms around Erik as best he could from the hospital bed.

"Oh. I traveled, mainly. Not too exciting. I went through this little village in the Pyrenees, met this rather homely young thing who fell in love with me. Kate, her name was."

Severus almost felt what he could only describe later as a pang of jealousy. But it couldn't have been. So he had no idea how to address it, besides begging for more information on the subject.

"What happened with her?"

"We had a kid. Named her Katarina, after her mother. She was a beautiful girl."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Marry the woman or no?"

"Oh, I didn't mention? She insisted we marry. I actually got a bad bout of the influenza, and she nursed me through it. Somewhat felt obligated to marry her after that, though I cared nothing for her. Very, ahem . . . big, you know."

A chuckle emitted from Severus' throat, and he almost felt relief. "Hell. You're one devil of a fellow."

"I saw it as a kindness on my part, actually. She loved me desperately. I liked her well enough. We hit it off not too badly, so we had as nice a time as I could manage for us."

"What happened to her?" Snape had to ask.

"Died three years after Katarina was born, eaten by a tiger in the Congo jungle. She had Katarina with her at the time, and the girl disappeared. Though we never found her body. A sad thing, really."

He went on, almost defensively, "You do know, though, even when we lived there in the Congo, managing the only hotel in the only town in the country, I always worked on potions and magic. I studied from some of the books you purchased me, and got my own as well. I did a lot of experiments, trying to remember what I had done to make that time-traveling potion that had brought you to me. The hard thing was that I lost the only jar I had left of the stuff, somewhere in England. Probably how it got to you in the first place. In any case, I worked for every night of the five years after you left, trying to discover what I had done to reverse it. I only succeeded just now, hence my arrival here. And I am sorry about the mess my face has become again, but it somewhat just . . . wore away after a time."

With every sentence, Erik's voice got tighter and more constricted, his pulse and words racing faster and faster. His frenzied clutching of Severus began to greatly pain the latter's burn, but the invalid said nothing. Snape's mind also swam in a fast-paced river of suspicions and ideas. Ideas he did not entirely like . . .

"Erik," he asked on impulse, "Do you love me?"

The other brushed off the question with nonchalance. "Of course, you've been the greatest friend in the world to me."

"I mean, more than platonically."

Was he pushing his rights? After all, Erik had not seen him in five years, and . . . well, Snape defended himself, Erik certainly _acted _like a woman greeting her husband home from war after years, updating him on all the meaningless activities that had occurred while away.

"How do you want me to answer?"

The voice came, timid and muffled by Severus' shoulder.

Severus plied the gripping arms off him until his nose was inches away from Erik's eyes. If Erik's nose still existed, theirs should have both touched.

"Erik, I want the truth. The damn honest truth. Now."

The beautiful eyes of the phantom gazed into the coal black ones of the potions master.

"They do say," he stated, as though reciting a prophesy, "That absence makes the heart grow fonder. I . . ."

"Go on."

" . . . I suppose the simple answer can only be . . . _yes_."


End file.
